Chess is done.

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Transcript

00:00Ladies and gentlemen, chess is a difficult game, and one of the most

00:07disrespectful things that you can do in a game of chess is before starting it,

00:11offer your opponent odds. Say, I'll start the game with a knight less, I'll remove

00:17my rook, I'll remove my queen, and I'll still be able to beat you in a game. By

00:22the way, if you'd like to play against kids, that's a pretty good way to play.

00:25It's not too disrespectful. Now, computers have been better than humans

00:31for like 30 years, but they haven't been able to give us odds consistently, right?

00:37Surely, despite how good a computer is, it can't start the game with a knight less,

00:41or a bishop less, or even a queen less at the beginning of the game and still win.

00:48Yes, it can. And in this video, I'm going to show you how a bot started a game

00:53without a queen, and managed to defeat a grandmaster five times in a row.

01:00Folks, we're cooked. We, it, it, like, we are, we are absolutely fried. Battered. It's done.

01:12The grandmaster in question is a little bit older as far as grandmasters go, like

01:17right now grandmasters are teenagers and 20-year-olds, and this grandmaster is, I

01:20believe, in his 40s, if not close to 50, from Slovakia. And this was a few of the

01:25games that they played, and then he played a little bit more and ultimately

01:28got a score of like 19 to 13, something a little bit closer. But the first five

01:32games started, and this is how they went. Leela is one of the most powerful neural

01:38networks in the world. Leela is customizable. You can play, you know, it

01:42can play like a 1200, 1800, 2000, or it can literally start like this. Now, let me

01:46know in the comments if you want me to play it with Queen Ots, all right? And

01:52yeah, let's, let's, let's get into it. So the first move gets a double question

01:57mark because the evaluation plummets down, so it, game review thinks that the

02:01first move is a, is a mistake. And we're gonna look at five different games, all

02:05right? Now, these are blitz games. These are speed games. That's important to keep

02:08in mind. So the time was not unlimited. That's why mistakes do happen. Okay, Knight

02:12to f6, all right? Knight c3. And in the first game, Leela took the center. But the

02:19funny thing is, like, Leela has no Queen. And it's just absolutely incredible how

02:24it manages to stabilize the game and keep a pace of the game that doesn't

02:29allow the opponent to create any sort of problems. So the bishop goes to g5. Black

02:34plays h6 because the truth is, if you start trading pieces, you're gonna, you're

02:38gonna lose very quickly. So bishop goes back to f4. And now c5. Trying to open up

02:45the position, open up the bishop, open up the Queen, because Black has a Queen. White

02:51does not. Pawn takes c5. And now, again, you're, you're up a Queen, so you can just

02:56take on c5. But okay, Queen a5 is very tricky, trying to target this pawn,

03:00trying to, you know, pin, threaten to play Knight takes e4. Very nice move. White

03:05castles and Queen takes e5. Now Black is already very close to being totally,

03:08totally winning. Totally winning. Because, you know, Black is just gonna, like, take

03:13the Knight, attack the King. Leela plays e5. If I was playing Black here, I would

03:18probably play Knight g4, just try to attack the pawn on f2, just try to win as

03:22many pieces from the bot as possible. White, Black plays d takes e5. And the

03:27bishop doesn't even take. White doesn't take on e5, because White doesn't want to

03:32get into a situation where their pieces are under attack. So Leela tries to keep

03:35the pieces back. Black goes here. And now Leela plays this move, Knight d2. Castles.

03:41Knight b3. And here's something pretty wild happens. Black plays Queen b4, which

03:52is a pretty natural move, because you want to just keep the Queen. And next,

03:55you're gonna bring the pawns, you're gonna bring the Knight, you're gonna bring the

03:57bishop, and the rook, and so on. The move e5 by White was so brilliant, because

04:02what it did is it disconnected the bishop from participating in the game.

04:07And right now, we get h3. h3 is so sneaky. h3 just looks like a move designed to

04:14prevent the bishop and the Knight from going to the g4 square, because then you

04:17could take the bishop or the rook. h3 is so sneaky, though. You know what the point

04:21of h3 is? And Black misses it. Like I said, it's a speed game. If they had

04:24unlimited time, of course, Black would have seen this. But look at this position.

04:28You start going, wait, I'm actually a little bit uncomfortable here. Knight c6, a3,

04:33is the White Queen trapped?

04:39Now, the Black Queen, not the White Queen. If Queen h4, g3, Queen h5, bishop e2, Queen f5,

04:51g4, Queen e6, Knight c5.

04:59The move h3 from the computer prepared the sequence a3, g3, bishop e2,

05:07followed by g4, and Knight c5. The move h3 prepared seven moves into the future.

05:15Now, Black didn't see all of that. Black just thought the Queen was trapped, so

05:21Black gives it up for the Knight. Now, Black is still completely winning, but if

05:25you could barely accomplish all of that with an extra Queen, what do you think is

05:28going to happen when you don't have the Queen anymore? Well, Black goes here, right?

05:31And Black develops. Now, Black is still winning by a full Knight, and White's

05:37pawn structure is not particularly good. Bishop b7 is threatened, rook b8 is

05:41played, and Leela doing a very nice job here, just defending against the Black

05:44moves. Rook e1, e4, sacrificing a pawn to open up the bishop and plant the Knight

05:49here. Look at the move! Rook d5 is ludicrous! Rook d5, the only move in the

05:58position that actually tricks Black, and taking it is bad! Taking it is bad! Even

06:04though it's not clear at all, the point is Black's pieces are now a little bit

06:08more restricted, and you help the White pawn structure. Now we have this trade,

06:11and the pawns start moving forward. And before you know it, Leela has, despite

06:17being a rook down now, has two advanced pawns. Black is still doing well. It's

06:21rook and bishop versus rook, rook, and Knight. However, slowly, methodically, and

06:28patiently, Leela is going to make it into an endgame where the pawns are still

06:34there, and the advantage for White is gone! It's gone! How is that even possible?

06:42And now, it's equal, but you're never gonna save this. I mean, you're in an

06:47equal rook endgame. You couldn't beat it up a queen. What makes you think you're

06:50gonna hold a draw? And Black does their best for a little while, but then

06:54blunders, and now after c6 and c7, the game is just over, because even though

06:59you are winning the rook, I am promoting, and I am making a queen. I mean, that is

07:03just, that is, like, from moves like rook d5, I don't even know what to say!

07:10Now, there were some other very funny games, right? And again, the point of this

07:14is not to rub it in, it is just to show that these computers are ridiculous!

07:20Ridiculous! And since then, like I said, the human did win a good amount of the

07:24games, probably adapting to the style. Maybe they played this a little bit late

07:28at night. Watch this game, okay? So in this game, you know, Leela gets into a fight

07:34very early. If I'm playing Black here, I take with the bishop. Yep, Knight c3, Knight f6,

07:39and watch this, okay? Knight takes, Knight takes. Now, this bishop, all you got to do

07:47is give the computer a little bit of a target, a little bit of a target, and it

07:52is going to strangle you with this weakness. Bishop goes to g2. In this game,

07:58Leela took the approach of just playing it safe, played kind of on the third rank,

08:02it didn't really intertwine with the opponent. You can castle in either

08:05direction. In this game, Black goes for a fight very quickly, probably tilted from

08:10the previous game, right? And now, I mean, the queen is swarming, so the king goes

08:14over here. I would actually be a little bit scared in this position as Black. I

08:17mean, I'm up a queen, but you know, you are on the verge of getting a little bit

08:22of a shish kebab here with the bishop on the b2 square. Maybe Rook e1, Rook f1,

08:28pressure on the Knights, then pressure with the bishop. I can see a way that, you

08:32know, you panic. The bishop goes to g4, the Rook goes to f1. I don't even, I can't

08:37even begin to understand that move, and why not this one? But Rook f1, I guess you

08:40had to prevent something from going to the f3 square. That's a nice move, because

08:43if Knight takes f6, if Rook takes f6, there is queen takes d2, Knight d5. Now,

08:50Knight d5 is a defensive move. It looks like an offensive move, right? It looks

08:54like an offensive move, but it's a defensive move. You were defending against this, and

08:57now, Black sacrifices the queen for the bishop, and in the previous game, when

09:01Black sacrificed on c3, right, in this position, Black was only up a bishop, or

09:05sorry, Black was only up a Knight. In this position, Black is up two Knights, so you

09:12have a position with an even bigger advantage than last time, and six pawns

09:18each. This has to be easy. You just come back. You don't do anything crazy. Just

09:22don't do anything crazy. Slowly trade the Rooks. King g7. Okay, fine. Knight f6 back.

09:28I mean, you can't do anything wrong here, right? Rook e4, alright. Bishop f5.

09:32I mean, the Rook is, alright, you got to defend something. Play Rook a4. Don't, you know,

09:36White is trying to play bishop takes Knight, and Rook takes pawn, and that's

09:39what the computer does. The computer is like, this is my best chance, which is

09:43insane. There's a pawn hanging here. White gave it away. Black didn't

09:47take it. Black trying to trade the pieces. White is not trading the pieces. That is

09:51not what you do when you are playing odds. Rook c5. Suddenly, suddenly, you

09:57start seeing the early signs of like, uh-oh. Could this possibly work out for

10:04the computer with White? Black has won all the other pawns, so all you got to do

10:09is move the Knight. You just got to start pushing your own pawn. You both have

10:12pawns. You're obviously going to Queen them. The King is safe. Push the h-pawn.

10:17I'm not sure I would have traded the Rooks, but okay. Again, like, you got to

10:22probably play h4 here, but you got to start pushing something. You got to

10:26start pushing something. You have to start pushing your pawn. Okay, Knight d6 is a

10:36mistake. The move that the computer plays in this position is so ridiculous. It

10:42plays Rook f7. To give up the Rook completely, to deflect the Knight from

10:48the b7 square, so after Knight takes, b7, and if something like h3, b8, the crazy

10:55thing is Black is still winning. Black is winning in this position, but can you

10:58imagine doing this against the computer? Allowing it to make a Queen, and maybe a

11:01second one, and just cold-blooded playing a move h2. What happens after Rook f7 is

11:06Black panics. I think Black wanted to play Rook f2 and defend the Bishop, but

11:10Black slips. Black plays Rook g2, and that's, of course, resignation, because once you

11:15lose the Bishop, the pawns will promote. Now, if Black had played Rook f2 here,

11:21maybe Black would not have lost five games, but it was low time, and that's

11:25what happens. The next game, I can't, again, like every single one of these games, I

11:30can't believe that the computer found a way to not just, like, not even win, to

11:35just defend the position, just stick around, you know, just like wait and wait

11:39and wait. Look at this position. So every previous game, the board opened up really

11:43quickly. Watch how in this game, the board locks, right? The board locks up, okay? In

11:49all the previous games, it was the engine surviving and, you know, slow, like, making

11:57a mistake, whatever. What? Watch this game. This game is so crazy. This game shows

12:02the astounding level difference between a human and a computer. Watch this. So b5, I

12:08mean, Black has locked the position and has just a direct attack on the king.

12:15White doesn't have a queen, for God's sake. White, meanwhile, leaves these pieces

12:20here, okay? The attack comes in, you're trying to open up the position. White just

12:25ignores, White just says, I don't care. I'm gonna attack your knight. When you come

12:28here, I'm gonna play f6. Now here, you have to, you have to give up the material.

12:36You have to give this up. You cannot allow a computer to have a space

12:41advantage against you. It is one of their most, I mean, frankly, you might lose from

12:44here too. But in this game, the person playing with Black went back and basically said, well,

12:50my king is safe. You know, maybe I'll sacrifice in the future if I have to. But for now, I'm

12:55gonna wait. The problem with this approach is that if you try to play like this, it's

13:02gonna be really, really tough. You have to sacrifice the material on f6. Watch. You know,

13:09there's some threats created over here. Again, this is a final move. You have to give this

13:12up. You have to get breathing room for your pieces. If you do not, if you keep trying

13:17to defend yourself, watch what happens. Knight c5, right? Somehow, everything is defended

13:24in the position. Everything is completely defended. h4, the attack is still kind of

13:30brewing there. Rook f7. And now, it's gonna start taking, and it's utilizing its space

13:41advantage to attack you with a very, very limited number of resources. It's still not

13:49too late to take, by the way. The best move, if takes, is actually to go takes, takes,

13:55takes on f6. It's still not too late to take, but they don't do it. Knight b5, still trying

14:01to attack. Meanwhile, pawn takes g6, pawn takes g6. King a1. The final moment. You have

14:10to take on f6. No. Black still tries to attack. Black tries to ignore. Rook h6. Stockfish

14:18is giving this a dubious move. Rook c5. Rook c5 intending, look at this, Leela is giving

14:27up two knights for the rook. Look at this. It wants to go knight c5, queen c5, but that's

14:32not the point. The point is, allow rook c5. And now, e5, mummifying the position. This

14:44is the best practical move, because now you are threatening rook h1, rook h8, and rook

14:51h7 mate. If you play this position as a human with black, you probably think you're losing,

14:56because you're going to play something like bishop g7 to try to sacrifice. I'm going to

14:59take, take. Suddenly rook h1, how do you defend against rook h7? You have to play queen g8.

15:04Suddenly I take the rook. I mean, you're not even like, you're not even, this is just the

15:08beginning of the nightmare. Now, the winning move after e5 is rook c3. Utilizing this massive

15:17material advantage, and basically after queen c3, of course the game is over, but you, it

15:22doesn't matter if you don't take the rook, because if you don't take the rook, I play

15:24knight a3. Like, I'm still bulldozing. They miss it. They take on c2. Now rook h1, and

15:31watch what happens here. Rook h8, queen g8, trying to just trade down material. Now watch

15:38this position. A rook down. Alright, a full rook down, but the computer plants the knight

15:44on f6, and watch as it just survives. It just survives. That's all it has to do. You can't

15:49take the knight, because it's a fork, and the second that black got low on time, black

15:55blunders. You have to play rook b4. You're afraid of things like knight d6. You go here,

16:03you blunder a fork, and that's the end of the game. Now, okay, you can still play this

16:07position, but you will lose. It's equal, but you will lose, because, again, you couldn't,

16:12you know. Now, I, yeah, and this goes on and on. Like, this is, every game is different.

16:18h4 played, you know, because computers love to play like this. It's playing a gambit!

16:24It's down a queen, but it is playing a gambit. It is trying to develop its pieces faster

16:31than the opponent to play moves like bishop c4. Can you, can you imagine? It's a 10-point

16:36material advantage for black. How is it possibly going to be able to figure it out again? This

16:41is game four, by the way. There's still one more. So black gambits back and tries to develop

16:45the pieces. White also develops. Black also develops, closing up the position, saying,

16:50you can take my bishop. Oops. Oops. You got your bishop trapped. Bishop g4. Alright, Mikulis

17:02is like, hey, I'm still up a queen, you know. Knight bd2, knight bd7, the bishop has been

17:10lost, and now you are playing queen odds, except it's a queen for a bishop. I mean,

17:14you were not winning when it was just a queen, so you are probably not going to be winning

17:18when it's a queen for a bishop. But let's see how this position is going to develop.

17:21Like, I haven't seen the whole game. So, if I'm looking at this position for white, you

17:26know, I'm looking at stuff maybe down the e-file. I'm probably thinking that there are

17:31weak dark squares, and something could happen over there in the position. But honestly,

17:37I don't see much else. Like, black has a very, very good pawn structure. Black is going to

17:41play knight b6, take on d5, maybe try to take some central space. Okay, rook e1. Yeah, that's

17:48what I just said. Knight b6, and yeah, I mean, you don't really have much else. Like,

17:52you're down a bishop in this game, but everything that I've said so far comes true. How is white

17:56going to, you know, again, this is going to be very much a position where black is going

18:00to have to play to lose. Black is going to have to play to lose, not white. Black could

18:04play queen b6, put the rooks in the center, play solid, and if black doesn't do anything,

18:10black won't lose. Probably not. Knight f4. But in all these games, black is trying to

18:15play for something, right? And when you play for something, you play to lose. You play

18:18to win, but you also play to lose. e5. Giving up a pawn with the idea to trade the rooks.

18:25You see what I mean? You play to win, you play to lose. Rook takes, queen takes. Okay,

18:29but we lost the pawn. So for the transaction of trading the rooks, which is obviously good,

18:33we lost the pawn. That leaves Leela with just a rook on the board. Queen d8. Okay, it's

18:40still trying to instigate. Oh my gosh, it gave up a pawn near its king. What could the

18:46idea possibly be? Well, I'm going to tell you what the idea could possibly be. First

18:53of all, if you're wondering why the move g3 is not possible, black can play queen f6 and

18:57counterattack the knight while this knight is hanging. So the move knight e4 gets played

19:00here. Now, if I'm looking at this position, you know what I'm going to play with black

19:03probably? Queen d8. I just don't want my queen tangled up with the pieces. I don't want the

19:10queen tangled up. And then I'm going to bring, you know, the rook to the party. So we get g3,

19:15knight h3 check. Now, if you take on h3, right? Take on h3. Yeah, you kind of, you know, bishop,

19:29queen is hanging. And if this, you get your queen trapped. Every mistake is brutally punished.

19:44This is the result of a tilt, right? I mean, black was doing great. White had no chance to win.

19:53And the second you mess up, you are smacked. Now, there are games that Lila won, and there are

19:59games that the human, right, just lost. So this is the final game of the first five games of this

20:05little mini match. I was fascinated by the fact that the computer relentlessly opened the position

20:13despite being down a queen. Like to me, it is unhinged to open the position like this. I mean,

20:20how can, but it's not any good. It's actually not any good to play like this, which is wild, you know?

20:26So what ended up happening was this, right? Black played e5, knight c3. And if I'm playing black,

20:36again, I'm just going to trade. I'm going to open the position. I'm not going to allow the computer

20:39to lock anything, right? Knight f3, bishop g4, all good. Pawn takes. You could take that. But knight h5

20:48is played, bishop e3. And I think this was kind of like the final sign of the tilt, because, you know,

20:56your queen's hanging. And probably what black saw here was, well, if I play queen e7, you know, he's

21:01going to go knight d5. And then if I play queen e6, there's knight c7. There's queen a2, though. You

21:05can't, you know, you can't play like that. And I think at this point, black was like, look, I'm just

21:12going to give up the queen for the rook. Now, so far, the queen has been traded in for a knight. The

21:16queen has been traded in for two knights. The queen has been traded in for a rook. So in every one of

21:21these games, you know, black has been up a queen. Black has been up a rook. Black has been up two

21:24pieces. Knight takes e5. And you have all the same pieces. Two bishops, two knights, one rook. How on

21:32earth, how on earth can the side with the less material and everything symmetrical beat you if you

21:39don't blunder anything crazy? So the knight goes back to c6. How can white possibly win this

21:45position? White cannot move any of the pawns because they're both weak. White can't move any pieces.

21:49Black has a totally solid position. f5 is on the way. Get the king out of the way, right? c3. Okay,

21:54restricting move. a6. King c2. I'm playing black. I want to go f5, but I don't want this check, so I play

22:00king h8. Okay, bishop e5 is totally fine. Disallowing the trade, right? Just an annoying move. f5

22:06played. Rook g1 takes. Ooh, sneaky. Sneaky, sneaky move. Look at this move. Look at this move. Rook g1.

22:15What a trap, right? This is why we needed to put the king in the corner because this is a huge problem.

22:22This is an attack on the bishop and an attack on the knight. Now, if you have your wits about you here, you

22:26find the best move. That is not the best move, right? The best move, right? The bishop was threatened. It

22:31was threatening the knight with the pin, so you have to go back to g7, at which point white might have

22:35played f5, and then you have to do what Lila would do, which is counter-sacrifice the rook on d3. You have

22:42to find these very timely, key defensive resources, which appear kind of randomly throughout, okay?

22:53So, knight takes f4 is wrong, but this is still a winning endgame. Black has two extra pawns and a rook

23:00for a bishop, but I'm not confident, you know? This is a great move, knight d3, getting in the way of everything.

23:06White is not going to trade. White is not going to trade. Rook e5, knight e5. I mean, how can two bishops win this

23:12position? There is no way. Well, if you blunder a pawn, there might be a way. Knight g4, bishop goes to f4.

23:18I mean, oh no. No, no, no, and it's the worst possible moment to blunder because not only have you

23:30blundered, here black has only one move to survive because you're going to lose the rook. Black has to play the move b5.

23:37This is a ludicrous move, but you're trying to give up a pawn and save the rook, and if this, at least, you don't

23:46allow the a-pawn to move forward. If king b3, there is e3, forcing the king back, and if you don't play that move b5,

23:53look what happens. a4, and the thing is, I take the rook now, but it's even worse because I sneak a pawn through on

23:59the outskirts of the board and you simply cannot defend it, and this is game over. Absolutely unbelievable mini-match.

24:08Now, this was just five games. Credit to Mikulas, who kept battling and lost the sixth game, but ended up, like I said,

24:15ended up winning, I think, 12 times, ultimately, losing 20 along the way. Still close, you know, and if you want me to

24:23play against the bot, I can do it. All these, like, Leelas and whatever are generally hosted on Lichess, and so I will

24:35play against it if you guys want. Just let me know in the comments. I'm slightly terrified of getting embarrassed.

24:40Something even crazier is that Fabiano Caruana lost a match with knight odds. Now, queen odds, I think Fabiano would be

24:47just fine, but Fabiano Caruana is a top three player in the world. Mikulas is an older grandmaster. I mean, you know,

24:5650 and 30 and top three in the world is very, very different, but it's still unbelievable. It just shows, like, the level

25:04difference, and it's quite staggering, so I hope you enjoyed this video, and yeah, we're cooked, but at least we're all in

25:12this together, and chess is pretty AI-proof, so that's all I have for you today. Get out of here.

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